Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated in an interview with TASS following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Palestine will not agree under any circumstances to exclude Russia from the Middle Eastern settlement process. According to him, Russia "has always sought and continues to seek ways to reach a peaceful solution and strives diligently for a just resolution to the Middle East issue in accordance with international law." Abbas noted Russia's role in the Middle East Quartet and added that the United States has always wanted to exclude Russia from this process, which insists on the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Abbas said, "This is Russia's position, which it adheres to in the United Nations, in the Security Council, and in the General Assembly, and its stance on this issue is firmly and clearly defined."
President Abbas emphasized that, on the contrary, the United States is doing everything possible to prevent international recognition of Palestinian rights. He added: "The United States hinders, by all means and ways, the resolutions aimed at achieving international recognition for Palestine, while ignoring and bypassing even the already adopted [United Nations] resolutions." He noted that since 1947, a thousand resolutions have been issued by the United Nations regarding the Palestinian issue, but none of the resolutions have been implemented. He said, "About seven hundred fifty resolutions from the General Assembly, around eighty resolutions from the Security Council, and the rest from the UN Human Rights Committee. When I addressed the Security Council, I said: you are the highest authority in the world. But if you do not implement your resolutions, where can I turn? To the sky?" Abbas continued, "In 2016, resolution 2334 was adopted, and all Security Council member states voted in favor of it; even the U.S. did not vote against it but simply abstained. Then [former U.S. President Donald] Trump came to power and canceled this resolution."
